Thursday, November 13, 2008

LinkShare Holiday Edition Newsletter for 2008

The affiliate network LinkShare sent out its November newsletter today. The content is mostly geared toward publishers who are trying to figure out which advertisers and programs to promote during the upcoming holiday season. If you would like to sign up for the LinkShare network and gain access to a wide variety of merchants whose products can be promoted for affiliate commission income, you can do so here.

Welcome to the November issue of the Publisher Newsletter. To assist you in maximizing your website's potential for Holiday 2008, we have put together this special section of LinkShare's Publisher Newsletter to highlight some important dates, suggest popular holiday advertisers, and highlight consumer and publisher promotions. We have compiled a list of LinkShare's advertisers that commission on gift cards, in addition to suggested LinkShare advertisers who offer exciting special promotions for Cyber Monday. Furthermore, don't forget to register for Symposium West 2009 and visit our newly launched blog! We are also very pleased to announce that we recently released an update to our Publisher Dashboard. If you have not been there recently, it's worth taking a look. Then sign up for one of LinkShare's Special Publisher Training courses on LinkShare Products. Topics include Easy Links, Flex Links and RSS DeelFeed WordPress Plug-In. We hope you have a successful holiday season!

Holiday 2008: Important Dates

November 28 "Black Friday" - The day after Thanksgiving was traditionally the day that retailers went from being "in the red" (in debt) to being "in the black" (making a profit). Today, Black Friday is known as the official start of the holiday shopping season.

December 11 "Cyber Monday" - The Monday after Thanksgiving is when online traffic and sales increase. Many shoppers are too busy shopping in brick and mortar stores over the Thanksgiving weekend to shop online, or they did not find what they were looking for, so they go to the web from home and work on Monday to find that perfect holiday gift. Click here to view the list of recommended advertisers for you to consider joining their programs for upcoming Cyber Monday.

December 20 "When It Absolutely, Positively, Needs to Be There" Last Ship Date - For most retailers, this is the absolute last day that they will ship an item to guarantee delivery for Christmas. Keep in mind, most retailers will charge an extra fee for the rush delivery. It is a good idea to check with your advertisers to confirm their last ship date. Most advertisers list their last ship dates on the Holiday Publisher Promotions and Holiday Consumer Promotions pages in the Publisher Help Center.

December 20-25 Target Last Minute Shoppers - Many retailers offer electronic gift cards for last minute shoppers. E-gift cards can be sent directly to the recipient via email and just in time for Christmas. Make the most of this gift card trend by promoting the LinkShare advertisers that commission on gift cards purchased through publisher links.

December 26 Post-Holiday Sales - You have survived the busy holiday shopping season. Now is the time to take advantage of consumers looking to spend their holiday cash and gift cards on post-holiday sales. View the latest post-holiday promotions on the Publisher Help Center!

Announcing the LinkShare Blog

We are pleased to announce that we have launched the official LinkShare Blog! Stay tuned to the blog for industry news, product announcements, system updates, research, best practices, and more from the LinkShare team.

So far we have written about our HTML Gift Card Storefronts, WordPress plug-in, Publisher Dashboard enhancements, and Symposium West 2009.

Here are a few ways you can join us:

Bookmark our blog: http://www.linkshareblog.com

Subscribe to the RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/linkshareblog/wpIT

Follow us on Twitter for short, relevant network updates and info: http://twitter.com/LinkShareBlog

Announcing Product LinkFinder

On October 23rd we introduced Product LinkFinder, a Publisher Dashboard tool that is a search engine for individual product links. Publishers can choose to search either within a single Advertiser or across all Advertisers they have a relationship with. If a Publisher chooses to search within a single Advertiser, they can also choose a specific category. Publishers will only see search results from Advertisers they have a relationship with. Our goal with Product LinkFinder is to make it easy for Publishers to find product links, and for Advertiser to gain more product link distribution. Product LinkFinder uses your Merchandiser product file or individual product links in the search results. As we work on expanding distribution of your product links, it becomes even more critical for you to have an up-to-date product feed with clear attributes.

If you don't offer Merchandiser, now is the perfect time to take a fresh look!